Bachelorette star Hannah Brown was down to the last four contestants for consideration to be her future husband. Now, due to one of those contestants’ outdated views on premarital sex — particularly, his views for how women should behave before marriage — she’s down to three potential suitors.
Luke Parker, a born-again Christian contestant, has been abstinent for years. He’s had sex prior in his life, but now doesn’t have premarital sexual relations. He told Brown he wanted to have a partner who would do the same.
Brown shot him down, telling him she wouldn’t apologize or acquiesce to his views.
“Guess what? Sex might be a sin out of marriage, pride is a sin, too, and I feel like this is like a pride thing,” she said. “I feel like I’ve finally gotten clarity on you and I do not want you to be my husband.”
Brown also told Parker that she’s had sex with other contestants on the program — including having intercourse inside a windmill, twice.
“I have had sex and, like, Jesus still loves me,” she added.
Parker launched into a perplexed tirade with Brown, at times upset, other times walking that back and trying to act what some may consider compassionate. But when he asked if he could pray for Brown, she refused to let him do so.
Their spate continued off the show, after he got the boot, and into social media.
“I’m weeping at [my sins] and you’re laughing at yours. All sin stings. My heart hurts for both of us,” Parker tweeted.
Brown shot back a missive toward Parker, reminding him that “time and time again Jesus loved and ate with ‘sinners’ who laughed. And time and time again he rebuked ‘saints’ that judged. Where do you fall, Luke?”
Social media responded to Brown’s comments, with many giving her praise for standing up to Parker’s ways.
What’s killing me is that @luke_parker777 thinks that his and @AlabamaHannah relationship is 100% on his terms and that if he still wants her he can just come back & that’s THAT ON THAT and she can’t say anything about it. You give real, loving, Christian men A BAD NAME. pic.twitter.com/No0N4eFHGS
— legally brunette (@livraemk) July 16, 2019
https://twitter.com/theeverydaytrav/status/1151365422387802112
YES. @AlabamaHannah 👏🏼 As a Christian myself I can confidently say that unfortunately Christians can be some of the most condescending and hypocritical people. Luke judging Hannah and threatening to leave her because she had sex is incredibly toxic, hypocrical because he admitted
— Mandy (@mandylou_who) July 16, 2019
Anybody who had a Christian boyfriend in college throw God in their face ✋Hannah’s a true hero for us @AlabamaHannah #TheBachlorette
— Aubrey Jackson (@auberjack) July 16, 2019
Media critics also weighed in. Jenna Birch, a freelance writer penning a piece at Bustle, recounted her own upbringing with both sex and Christianity. She offered kudos to Brown for promoting her own worth as a person.
“Pegging a woman’s worthiness to virginity or sexual purity is a means of control, creating self-doubt, and stripping her of her autonomy,” Birch wrote in her analysis of the program. “He [Luke], in essence, said she was not much of a Christian if she’d slept with the other men. Hannah wasn’t buying it, and relayed a modern view: Her husband will love her for who she is.”
Watch the segment below:
[H/T Friendly Atheist]
Featured image via screen grab
